Surprised a thread hasn’t been created yet so I’ll get the ball rolling. Allan McNish, three time Le Mans winner, world endurance champion, former Toyota F1 driver and owner of the best Scottish accent in the history of time has announced his retirement from “front line racing” with immediate effect.

He said that having won “pretty much everything I wanted to win” and with the new rules that are being introduced in WEC next year the time is right to retire.

I was genuinely surprised to read about this.. but if WEC is becoming more about conserving the car? next year (actually don’t know about this.. or more hybrid like F1?) perhaps he is doing the same as Webber, who is ironically moving into WEC next year. I did notice that the LMP1s are now covered (in response to Massa/Surtees, or Davidson’s Le Mans crash?), which while good for safety makes the cars look a little more like space ships to me (I’m sure it’s an improvement for some, perhaps I will think similar in a few years, like many on the post 2009 F1 cars, which I quite like for looking slightly more like the wider set pre-98 cars).

It’s nice that he cited giving the younger drivers a chance as well, and for that to happen that obviously there would need to be space for them to secure a drive. Whoever gets his Audi seat will have a great shot at winning Le Mans 2014 you would have to have thought.

Speculation is immediately hoping that he will sign up with Sky F1 to replace Johnny Herbert?! :D

@matt90 I didn’t know about this.. so you are saying that Kristensen could have won it even more times?!

McNish crashed in 2011 fairly spectacularly early in the race, while passing to take the lead. I think another time was last year when he had a crash while pushing hard, which to be fair I believe he needed to be doing to challenge for the win. Of course he could have won more. there’s always a certain amount of luck, so being in a competitive car means you’re always in with at least an outside chance. And I think it’s 6 times that he hasn’t won despite driving the same car as the winner.

@matt90 Given that 6 years statistic, I’m surprised Kristensen teamed up with him for 2011! I can only remember that Davidson has been involved in two crashes in his two years, and that someone took out the deltawing, from the last two years. Clearly I need to watch Le Mans 24hrs! I’ve only seen snippets on live stream and then the news headline most of the time.

@george Sounds like he knew that there was a hard charger then that could do a better job pretty soon (maybe Webber knows this about Ricciardo as well, who also happens to be a fellow Aussie). So, he decided to beat the Soon o’clock and retire from the team for 2014 (same with Webber!). Interesting if Marko would have said he felt Ricciardo was better than Webber if he wanted to stay on longer.. Would we have Ricciardo-Kvyat in at Toro Rosso I wonder, if Didi kept Webber.. anyway this is irrelevant I know!

A little sad to hear this, McNish was one of those drivers that never shone in F1 but did very well outside of it and was one of the first drivers I really supported outside of F1. Still, going out with the title ain’t too bad and I’m sure we’ll see him around in the media. He had a bit on the Dutch F1 broadcasts in 2003 as a Renault tester which was hilarious. Wouldn’t mind seeing him at Sky or the BBC.

@fastiesty Sorry, that 6 year bit was about Kristensen. I’d moved on to commenting on what you said about “.. so you are saying that Kristensen could have won it even more times?!” Everything i said after “Of course” was about Kristensen. I see how completely unclear i made that now!

Another thing though is that the combination of Kristensen, Capello and McNish was spectacularly unsuccessful at le Mans given their records individually. 7 years and only 1 win as a trio! Yet McNish has 2 other wins (one this year when partnered with Kristensen but not Capello) and Capello similarly has another 2 (both of them when partnered with Kristensen).

@matt90 Ah, now I see! Speed-reading and the lack of a paragraph meant i didn’t catch on to that. Also, unfamiliarity with Le Mans!

That is a very interesting outcome. You would have thought that as a trio they would be unstoppable.. was it car problems or driver errors? On something as complicated as Le Mans (4/5ths of an F1 season in one race?! Basically the part up until Vettel starts to cakewalk it home to the championship trophy), there must be many factors going into each year’s victory and even each year’s driver pairing and how they get on. TBH, when I hear of Capello I am thinking Fabio the football manager, or Laurent Aiello!